Jimmie Dale's frown grew deeper. He liked Forrester The man was a bachelor and of about his, Jimmie Dale's, own age, and had always appeared to be a decent, clean-lived fellow, a man who worked hard, and was apparently pushing his way, if not meteorically, at least steadily up to the top, a man who was respected and well-thought of by everybody--and yet just what did it mean? The more he thought of it, the uglier it seemed to become.
He stepped suddenly toward the telephone--and as abruptly turned away again. He remembered that Forrester did not have a telephone in his rooms, for, on the night of the break-down, he, Jimmie Dale, had wanted to telephone, and had been obliged to go outside to do so. Forrester, obviously then, had done likewise to-night. Well, he should have insisted on a fuller explanation in the first place if he had intended to make that a contingent condition; as it was, it was too late now, and he had promised to go.
The sound of a motor car on the driveway leading from the private garage in the rear reached him. Benson was bringing out the car now. Jimmie Dale, as he prepared to leave the room, glanced about him from force of habit, and his eyes held for an instant on the portières behind which, in the little alcove, stood the squat, barrel-shaped safe. Was there anything he would need to-night--that leather girdle, for instance, with its circle of pockets containing its compact little burglar's kit? He shook his head impatiently. He had already told Jason--if in other words--that there was no "call to arms" to the Gray Seal to-night, hadn't he? It was habit again that had brought the thought, that was all! For the rest, in the last few days, since this new intuitive danger from the underworld had come to him, an automatic had always reposed in his pocket by day and under his pillow by night; and by way of defence, too, though they might appear to be curious weapons of defence if one did not stop to consider that the means of making a hurried exit through a locked door might easily make the difference between life and death, his pockets held a small, but very carefully selected collection of little steel picklocks. He smiled somewhat amusedly at himself, as he passed out of the room and descended the stairs to the hall below. The contents of the safe could hardly have added anything that would be of any service even in an emergency! His mental inventory of his pockets had been incomplete--there was still the thin, metal insignia case, and the black silk mask, both of which, like the automatic, were never now out of his immediate possession.